Linda Crowder - Jake and Emma 02 - Main Street Murder (7 page)

He turned to leave again, then stopped himself and walked back to Emma’s desk.  He sat back down in his chair and lowered his voice, “Emma, does Kristy Castle normally have access to your patient files?”

Emma looked surprised at the question.  “No, of course not.  Casper’s a small town so I maintain an especially high level of confidentiality.  I keep all my own patient files in here,” she gestured at a four drawer filing cabinet tucked into a corner of her office, “and I have the only key.”

“What information would Ms. Castle have access to?” continued Joyner.

“Billing information because she handles all my invoicing, and contact information because she manages my schedule.  Why do you ask?”

Detective Joyner was silent for a moment then answered, “Right now, Kristy Castle is the only person I know was alone in the restroom with Ms. Jackson and who left the arena with her hands and clothes covered in blood.”

“She found Cheri!” said Emma.  “She went back to look for her when Cheri wasn’t at their seats.  Of course Kristy had blood on her hands and her clothes.  She was trying to save Cheri’s life - and she did!”

Joyner held up his hands.  “Now don’t look at me that way, Emma.  I’m not accusing your friend of stabbing Ms. Jackson.  I’m just saying that I’m a cop and as a cop, everyone is a suspect until they aren’t a suspect - surely you understand that?”

Emma sighed.  “Jake would have said the same thing,” she told Joyner, “But that doesn’t make me like it.”

“Just so long as we understand each other,” said Joyner.  “I need you to leave Kristy Castle out of the loop in your work with Ms. Jackson.  If the attack on her really is connected to the murder in Ms. Castle’s building that makes Ms. Castle a prime suspect for both.”

Emma steamed at this but she didn’t have a logical argument to offer.  Joyner didn’t know Kristy like she did.  He didn’t know she would never have hurt Cheri and he only had Kristy’s word that she had barely known her neighbor before he died.  Kill him?  How could you look at Kristy and think she would kill anybody?

But emotion and intuition do not sway a determined policeman so Emma kept her opinions to herself.  She promised Joyner she would be careful to safeguard any notes she took with Cheri.  She also agreed to ensure that Cheri and Kristy would not be in the office at the same time so there would be no chance of Kristy overhearing their sessions.

Satisfied, Detective Joyner left and Emma went back to the case file she’d been working on.  When Kristy asked what Joyner had wanted, Kristy told her only that he’d been there about a crime victim he might be referring to her.  She told Kristy that because of a sensitive family situation, he’d asked her to observe especially strict confidentiality so she would need to handle all contact and billing with this client herself.

Kristy accepted Emma’s story, which made her feel all the worse for telling her half-truths.  She hoped Detective Joyner would solve the case quickly and things could go back to normal.

Then it occurred to her, what if he doesn’t solve the case?  Not every crime got solved.  Perhaps Cheri wouldn’t remember the attack, sometimes victims never completely recovered the memory of what happened to them.  If the case went cold, would Kristy live under a shadow of suspicion for the rest of her life? 

Emma shuddered.  It would be a terrible thing if justice was never served to the person or persons who committed these crimes but it would be worse for someone like Kristy, innocent but living with suspicion.  She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind of those thoughts.  If she was going to be a real help to Cheri, she couldn’t let her own concerns about Kristy influence her work.

9

Detective Joyner had stopped by the hospital to speak with Cheri when he left Emma’s office.  He found her newly settled into a room on the main medical floor
, looking less fragile than she had only an hour earlier.  When she agreed to work with Emma to regain her memory, Joyner had filed the paperwork with the state’s victim fund to have the sessions authorized.  He put a “rush” code on the paperwork, which usually brought a response either the same day or early the next morning.

With that done, he turned his attention to the security camera footage which had been copied to a disk that had been sitting neglected on his desk.  He popped the disk into the drive and waited while the viewing software opened and the silent images started. 

The fact that Emma Rand knew what float was going by at the time she overheard the men’s conversation considerably narrowed the amount of footage he needed to view in order to locate them.  He scanned the crowd as the Welcome Wagon came into the camera’s range. 

The camera was trained on the road - the better to catch accidents and monitor traffic which was the intent when the City installed these cameras.  Only the first couple of rows of bystanders could be seen, and then only from the camera’s vantage point 20 feet above street level.

He spotted Emma and Jake, their lawn chairs in the first row of spectators.  Children darted out here and there, scooping up candy tossed out to them.  Emma’s face was clearly visible, looking up and waving at her friends on the Welcome Wagon.  Jake was turned away from her and looking down, chatting with a child who was excitedly showing off some prize gleaned from the floats.

Joyner saw Emma’s attention shift and her head turn partially as though she were listening to something in the crowd.  He froze the frame and zoomed in on Emma and what he could see of the people standing behind her.  Directly behind Emma were two men, heads together.  The taller of the two, wore a baseball cap that shaded his face.  They were gesturing at the parade.

Frustrated because all he could see of them was the tops of their heads, Joyner advanced the footage frame by frame.  Four frames later, the shorter man looked up at the float and Joyner was able to capture a slightly out of focus but clear enough to be recognizable picture of him.

He saved the image then continued advancing one frame at a time until the men turned away from the camera.  The taller man had not looked up, once pulling on the bill of the cap, keeping his face out of the camera’s eye. 

Joyner wondered if the man was aware of the Main Street cameras and was deliberately hiding his face from them.  If so, he clearly hadn’t shared that information with his companion.

Resuming regular speed, Joyner watched while the men quickly disappeared from view and Emma nudged Jake.  Joyner watched while she gathered her lawn chair and disappeared in the direction the men had gone with Jake trailing behind her.

As the Welcome Wagon trundled out of the camera’s view, there was a brief section of blank screen then an image of the corner where Emma had reported losing the men in the departing crowd.  He saw what appeared to be the taller of the two men turn away from the parade route and head up the street.  A minute or so later, Emma came into camera range, looking toward the man but prevented by the now surging crowd from following him.

Joyner reversed the footage and watched again as the man came into camera range then turned away from the spectators.  He was clearly alone at this point.  Joyner wondered where the second man had gone.  Joyner watched frame by frame as the man made his turn.  The camera that had captured these images was oriented toward the intersection but he thought there might be a moment or two when the angle would be right to catch the man’s profile.

Joyner swore under his breath as the man turned his face away from the camera, keeping his focus on the shaded storefront until the danger had passed.  By the time the man faced forward again, all Joyner could see was his back, then he disappeared from the camera’s view all together.

There were no cameras on the side street that might have recorded where the man had gone.  The City had installed them only on one five block stretch of Main Street.  Always frugal, the Council wanted to test whether the cameras would prove useful enough to warrant spending the money to install more.  Right now, Joyner wished they hadn’t been quite so careful with his tax dollars.

Emma paused to knock on the open door that led to Cheri Jackson’s hospital room.  Hearing Cheri’s cheerful response, she walked in to find a room liberally decorated with well-wishes.  Every flat surface, except the nurses’ work station, seemed to boast a card, plant or vase of flowers. 

Two big bundles of balloons floated in the corners, anchored by the trademark golden foil of Casper Balloon & Gifts.   Emma laughed as she deposited her own balloon bouquet next to the much larger one that boasted a trademark Welcome Wagon balloon as its centerpiece.

“Oh my, Emma,” said Cheri, grasping Emma’s hand as she settled herself on a corner of the bed, “you didn’t have to bring me anything.  Just your smiling face is present enough for me.”

“Don’t knock it,” said Emma, smiling back at her friend.  “It’s not every day a girl gets to find out how much she’s appreciated.”

Cheri waved her hand depreciatingly.  “You know how it is when you’re a member of something.  Word goes out, ‘She’s in the hospital’ and it triggers the flower committee.”

Emma looked around the room, “I have seen those obligatory flower committee arrangements my friend and these are not them!  I’m not sure there are any flowers left in Casper.  I think I got the very last balloons in town!”

Cheri laughed.  She had a good, hearty laugh and Emma was pleased to be hearing it again.  Cheri’s color had returned to her and she was sporting neither IV nor oxygen tubes today.  Emma asked when Cheri thought she’d be going home.

“I could go home today,” Cheri answered, “but that crazy policeman says I have to stay here until he can get a team put together to babysit me.”

“Detective Joyner?” asked Emma.  Cheri nodded.  “He thinks you need police protection?”

“Isn’t it wild?” answered Cheri.  “Some crazy person, probably just somebody who’d had too much to drink, takes a swipe at me and suddenly I need a body guard.  Waste of taxpayer money, if you ask me.  At least I work in a bank surrounded by security so I was able to convince him I could go to work all by myself.”

“Well I’m a taxpayer and I can’t think of a better use of my money.”  Emma smiled as Cheri stuck her tongue out at her.  “Have you been able to remember anything more about what happened?”

Cheri’s smile vanished and her face became serious.  “No, Emma, I have not and I don’t understand it.  Oh, I know they say it’s trauma but I don’t see what’s so traumatic about it.”

“Cheri, you almost died,” answered Emma.  “You were in a place you assumed would be reasonably safe and then suddenly it wasn’t.”

“Yes, but in the accident that killed my Joe I almost died too - I even bounced my head off the steering wheel,” said Cheri.  “I didn’t forget what happened then.”

“Post-traumatic amnesia isn’t quite that predictable,” explained Emma.  “Some people will develop it but only for a few hours after an incident.  Others will never remember what happened.  Still other people, like you, may develop it after one sort of trauma but not after another.”

“In other words, ‘who knows,’ right?” asked Cheri. 

Emma smiled ruefully.  “Something like that.  Human behavior is an inexact science.  Every person is a complex combination of all the biological and environmental influences that have affected them over the course of their lifetime.  I can predict generally how someone should respond to a situation, but one plus two doesn’t always equal three with human beings.”

Cheri sighed.  “This is why I became a banker.  Give me a spreadsheet and I can tell you 100% of the time what those numbers are going to add up to be.  People?  That’s a whole other story.”

“Exactly,” said Emma.  “Which by the way is also probably why Detective Joyner wants you to have someone looking out for you for awhile.  At least until we have an idea of why someone would attack you, it’s best to keep you safe.”

“That sums it up perfectly.”  Both ladies turned toward the man’s voice at the door.  Detective Joyner walked into the room followed by a uniformed policewoman. 

“Ladies, I’d like to introduce you to Officer Ann Rutledge.  She’s going to be your evening security detail tonight, Ms. Jackson.”

Emma rose and shook hands with Officer Rutledge, stepping back so the policewoman could speak with Cheri.  Joyner pulled Emma into the corner of the room furthest from the bed and they spoke in hushed tones.

“I was able to pull a picture of one of the men you overheard at the parade from the City’s Main Street traffic cameras,” he said, pulling a print of the shorter man from the pocket of his suit jacket.  “Do you recognize him?”

Emma took the print and studied it.  The picture was grainy, but she thought if she knew the man, she might be able to recognize him from it.  Shaking her head, she handed the print back to Joyner.  “No, I’m sorry.  His face doesn’t ring a bell.  I could probably recognize their voices if you ever find them, but I didn’t get a look at their faces.”

Joyner nodded.  He suspected as much since the men had turned away on the footage before Emma had arisen to follow them.  He moved to the side of the bed opposite Officer Rutledge and showed Cheri the same picture.  She didn’t recognize the man either.

“Is this the person you think attacked me?” she asked, handing the picture back to the detective.

“Anything is possible,” answered Joyner, being deliberately vague.  Emma had warned him not to plant ideas in Cheri’s head about the attack because they could influence the recovery of her memory. 

“Right now, I am not even sure whether the person who attacked you was male or female.  This,” he said, holding up the picture, “is someone I’m interested in on another case.  I was just hoping you might know him since you seem to know everybody.” 

Emma smiled at Joyner’s attempt to extricate himself from his self-inflicted dilemma.  Cheri seemed not to notice the detective’s awkwardness.  “Everyone is always saying that, Detective, but Casper is far too big now for me to possibly know everyone anymore.  Ask me fifteen years ago and yes, I probably would have known him or known that he was definitely not from around here,” she shook her head sadly.  “The way the city keeps growing nobody will know their neighbor before very long.”

Dr. Gibbs dispelled the momentary pall that had fallen over the room by choosing that moment to walk through the door.  Seeing the policewoman standing by Cheri’s bed, his smile broadened.  “I see Detective Joyner has moved mountains over at City Hall to get you home before dinner,” he said.

Emma said goodbye and promised to call Cheri in the morning as a flurry of discharge activity engulfed her room.  Cheri would be taking the rest of the week off at the insistence of Dr. Gibbs so Emma agreed to call Cheri at her home. 

Joyner walked out with Emma, giving Cheri privacy while the nurse helped her get dressed.  When Dr. Gibbs had told Cheri she’d be going home soon, Cheri had given Kristy her keys and asked her to go to her house to pick up a change of clothes since the ones she’d been wearing at the time of the attack were now in the police evidence locker.

“Do you have a picture of the other man?” asked Emma, once they were out of earshot.

“No, unfortunately he kept his head covered and his face turned away from the cameras,” answered Joyner.

Emma frowned.  “That’s bad luck.”

“Very bad,” agreed Joyner.  He kept his speculation about the man knowing the positioning of the cameras to himself.  He’d spoken with the man who oversaw the City’s camera project and learned there was nothing special about that.

“Anybody who looks up will notice them,” he answered in response to Joyner’s question.  “It’s just like shoplifting cameras in the stores.  Whether somebody is planning to steal anything or not, they just get into the habit of looking for cameras and avoiding them.  Anybody who doesn’t want to be seen can pretty much guess by the placement of the cameras what they can - and can’t - see.”